Speaker Greg Fergus stands at the bar of the House of Commons, April 17, 2024 in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus rebuffed calls from the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois to resign, a day after he kicked Pierre Poilievre out of Question Period during a session marked by testy exchanges between the Opposition Leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Conservatives argued Wednesday that the Speaker failed to act in a non-partisan way and was biased in censuring Mr. Poilievre while allowing unparliamentary language from the Liberals.
The Prime Minister was not censured for saying Mr. Poilievre showed “shameful, spineless leadership” and pandered to white nationalists, while the Conservative Leader was booted after calling Mr. Trudeau “wacko” and offering up other adjectives such as “radical” and “extremist” when Mr. Fergus asked him to withdraw his comment.
“Speaker Fergus has no intention of resigning,” his spokesperson Mathieu Gravel said in a statement to The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Gravel pointed out that Mr. Fergus asked the Prime Minister to “reframe” his comments about Mr. Poilievre, which Mr. Trudeau then did.
“The Speaker offered Mr. Poilievre four opportunities to withdraw his comment and reframe his question. Mr. Poilievre did not avail himself of those opportunities,” Mr. Gravel said.
Mr. Fergus is a Liberal MP, but he is expected to govern the House in a non-partisan manner.
“He should resign, he’s a disgrace,” Conservative MP Michael Cooper told reporters.
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That sentiment was echoed by some of his colleagues. The Bloc also said the Speaker should now show himself the door, not because of what happened Tuesday but rather because of his inability to manage the House.
Both the Bloc and the Conservatives called for Mr. Fergus’s resignation after he appeared in a partisan video in December. On Wednesday, Bloc House Leader Alain Therrien said his party’s position hasn’t changed since last year. However, he also said Mr. Fergus was doing his job when he booted Mr. Poilievre from the House.
Both Conservative and Liberal MPs strongly defended their own leaders and placed the blame for Tuesday’s chaotic Question Period on the other. But Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Poilievre elected not to repeat their performances the next day. The name-calling was largely shelved, as was the heckling, in Question Period.
At one point Mr. Trudeau said Mr. Poilievre was taking a “new, more reasonable tone.” However, the Prime Minister later pivoted to attack the Conservative Leader saying his conduct on Tuesday was “unbecoming of anyone who aspires to leadership” and accusing him of standing with “far-right extremism.”
Mr. Fergus chided Mr. Trudeau for that comment and encouraged the House to “continue in the positive vein which I think Canadians have noticed that members have been taking today.”
Before Question Period, Liberal House Leader Steve MacKinnon accused the Conservatives of playing victim, comparing Mr. Poilievre to former U.S. president Donald Trump.
“They come into our democratic institutions, they break all the rules, and when they are called on breaking all of the rules, they leave and say they’ve been gagged,” Mr. MacKinnon said.
“Mr. Poilievre has that in common with another person yesterday who walked out of a courtroom in New York, saying he’s being gagged. These are the tactics of this very dark, extreme right wing.”
Asked on Wednesday about the finger pointing and blame game between the Conservatives and Liberals, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said there was a “plague” on all their houses.
“Yesterday was a gong show,” she said. “Scoring one day’s points in a national news cycle is not worth making a single additional Canadian think ‘I’m disgusted with all of them and I don’t want to vote.’”
With a report from Campbell Clark